Anime / Tenchi Muyo! GXP

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Tenchi Muyo GXP: Galaxy Police Transporter is a Spin-Off of the Tenchi Muyo! series (specifically, the original OVA incarnation), directed by Shinichi Watanabe. It begins during episode 5 of the third Tenchi OVA and progresses further outwards from there, providing something of a detailed look at the series' Verse and life in "civillized" space, as opposed to the original, which by and large mostly takes place on Earth and in uninhabited space.

The focus character is Seina Yamada, a young man with a kind heart, a spiky crewcut that is unusually pleasant to the touch, and the absolute worst luck ever (His bicycle frequently falls to pieces while he's riding it, doorknobs snap when he's trying to open them, windows and awnings collapse when he's under them, the horse you've bet on loses its jockey while you're listening when he passes, etc). The series opens with said luck bouncing him and anyone in his path around while he hurries to visit Kiriko, a childhood friend who just returned after months out of town. Tempting fate, he takes a shortcut by the home of Tenchi Masaki, whom he admires and respects — just in time to be knocked in the lake by a passing spaceship. This begins his chance encounter with Amane Kaunaq, a Galaxy Police officer who had stopped off on Earth to make a delivery to Tenchi. She assumes that Seina knows about Tenchi's houseguests, and she's impressed that he survived the crash in such good shape, so she gives him an application form for the "GP" and tells Seina to look her up.

Seina finally meets Kiriko, and the visit goes fairly well — although he has trouble explaining the lipstick on his neck! Afterwards, Seina's family forces him to complete the form (they think it's a lottery application), and he's abducted and shanghaied into the Galaxy Police by the end of the episode. Luckily for him, his terrible luck makes him a natural-born magnet for Space Pirates, and he's soon convinced to try to use his "powers" for good. Before even finishing his training, he is assigned to the GP's decoy unit, which hopes to use his luck as a weapon in order to draw out more pirates and crush them. Of course, since Seina is Willfully Weak, he also acquires a sizable Harem, who, true to the spirit of Tenchi Muyo!, fight over and embarrass him at every possible opportunity as they hunt down pirates, deal with the intergalactic bureaucracy, and of course, enjoy lots and lots of Hot Springs.

Tenchi Muyo GXP builds on both the formula and setting of the original Tenchi series. Funimation has released this series in English, and it aired on the [adult swim] Toonami block on Saturday nights at 3:00 AM (following in the footsteps of the first two Tenchi Muyo! OVA series, Tenchi Universe, and Tenchi in Tokyo, all of which aired on the original Toonami block on Cartoon Network, albeit heavily censored).

This anime provides examples of:

Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: Seina seems to be making a lot of money as a Fleet Captain even if he is just a Decoy. It is never stated how much because most of the money he earns is put into a savings account he does not have access to until his graduation. Yet it seems the interest alone is enough for his family to live in a mansion.

Beach Episode: Twice. It helps that the Kamidaki II has its own beach.

It generates Lighthawk wings without Kiriko's Jurian Tree, Misuki. Both Tarant and Seto are flabbergasted how he can do this since Lighthawk wings are a Jurai only power. This one is explained by the mecha possessing a First Generation Jurian Tree that the royal family didn't know about.

It reaches into hyperspace and pulls Tarant's ship back into regular space. One of Tarant's allies would rather believe this was a trick than truly happening. One of his sub-ordinates confirms the trope:

"The laws of physics have just been shattered."

Big Fancy House: Amane's "second home"; later, the new home Seina's parents bought after he moved away.

Born Unlucky: Seina's terrible luck is so bad that the GP actually uses it as a weapon. Since his luck is so horrible that if often attracts space pirates, he's assigned the job of decoy in tracking them down.

Alan, Barry, and Cohen have a brief Fourth Wall-breaking moment of this when one heads off on his own and the other two protest that he can't, because the three of them together comprise a single character.

Butt-Monkey: Seina for the first few episodes and Seiryo for practically the entire series.

The Cameo: Seina sees Ryoko flying at the beginning, which causes him to crash. Washu with a suspenders, scarf, shades can be seen running an open-air market booth. Seina meets Tenchi near the end.

Canon Discontinuity: Rumor has it that Kajishima was dissatisfied with the anime of GXP, that he decided to write light novel series that toned down the harem antics, gave more character depth and even increased Seina's harem up to 20 women! Including his future mother-in-law and Fuku! The novels are also used as reference for the fourth Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki series, thus making the anime GXP knowledge obsolete.

Cat People: The Wau are best described as a race of anthropomorphic mountain lions.

Chick Magnet: A rather strange version. Most girls on Earth don't particularly take notice of Seina, but once he's out in space... Everyone! It's not just his Harem either. After he gets into an accident while apart from the harem, a lady doctor shows more than a glancing interest in him and tries to jump him. He gets away, but not without a lip-stick stain on the cheek.

Continuity Nod: A lot, mostly towards the third Tenchi Muyo! OVA. For example, Minami Kuramitsu is seen running the GP spaceship mechanic team after having been sentenced to do so at the end of OVA 3, the planet-sized warship Chobimaru still bears all the grafitti/damage inflicted upon it during its Curb-Stomp Battle against Ryo-Oh-Ki, and Amane makes reference to having sung at the wedding of two characters who became engaged thanks to Tenchi and his harem.

Does This Remind You of Anything?: Toyed with. An early Running Gag sees NB having large, pointy parts of spaceships jammed into his rear end (don't ask). He reacts just as you would expect. Also played with later on... When Seiryo talks about how his day with Seina has come, a droopy shock baton stands up firmly.

Ensign Newbie: Seina is given command over a decoy ship despite still technically being a cadet.

Justified in that the higher ups were trying to weaponize his bad luck. Putting him onto a battleship might seem like a good idea until you realize his bad luck bleeds onto everybody (barring his harem), not just pirates.

Seto, the "Oni Princess of Jurai". Amane's a RebelliousHeiress. Partway through the series, Ryoko finds out that she's also related to a man about to become a king, which makes her a princess as well. Seto persuades Kiriko to be adopted into the Juraian royal family by pointing out the competition.

Neige has just ended 2 millennia as head of state of a theocracy. Which doesn't make her a princess, exactly, but close enough for government work.

The opening credits show four silhouettes, The final three are obviously Aeka, Ryoko (Hakubi), and Tenchi, while the first is eventually revealed to be Neige in the episode that introduces her. Tenchi and co's silhouettes are revealed in the crossover episode. The Kamidake II appears at the end of the sequence after its introduction, and Neige, Fuku, and Ryoko are added to the Team Shot following Fuku's addition to the cast.

The ending credits intially use an Idiosyncratic Wipe which causes the background to change each time copies of Seina's trademark band-aid fill the screen. Halfway through the series, the band-aids are replaced with multiple Fukus. Nude images of Amane and Kiriko (Nipple and Dimed for your convenience, naturally) shown towards the end of the sequence are replaced with ones of Ryoko, and for some reason, Mitoto.

Exact Words: Rookie informs the girls while kept in custody they have access to "everything in the room is at your disposal to use as you see fit", emphasizing the word "everything" while his eyes look over to something covered by a blanket. Cluing them in that he is on their side.

The combat uniform Amane wears in episode 19 is nearly identical to the Kazuki wears in Dual!

Arguably, a lot of characters are based on the cast in Dual!, if only to some amount of appearance. Kiriko = Mitsuki Sanada, Amane = Yayoi, D = Neige, Ryoko = Mitsuki Rara. Seto = Ayuko.

Eye Catch: Of the "General Footage" variety. When going to a commercial break, it has footage of something occurring later in the episode, and when returning it shows a quick clip of something that already happened.

Fish out of Water: Seina. He is often confused or lacking knowledge of alien cultures.

Four Is Death: Inverted, The GXP novels and fourth OVA series of Ryo-oh-ki reveal that so long as Seina is within proximity of four members of his harem, his bad luck doesn't affect anyone allied with him.

Gag Boobs: Vega, a Rich Bitch rival of Amane's from her model days, has a rather impressive pair.

Gambit Roulette: It's been theorized that Lady Seto had planned for most of Seina's career since their first meeting — including the wedding fiasco.

Genius Ditz: Mitoto Kuramitsu, daughter of Minami and mother of Mihoshi and Misao. She's a bubbly, airheaded lady who has as much navigational sense as Seina has luck, but is frighteningly competent when it comes to spaceship systems and repelling pirates. She also is able to enter hyperspace on foot, leading to her finding herself in the most interesting places.

She seems subject to quantum uncertainty when it comes to her location.

Gilded Cage: Seriyo is kept in a very well furnished cell when captured by the pirates. He still considers it a Hell Hole Prison though.

The girls are kept in a castle when Seina is believed to have stolen the Kamidaki II.

Girl Posse: Vega seems to have girls around her simply to smile and agree with whatever she says.

Infinite Supplies: Averted in episode 12 in which Seina's ship is being tracked by pirates who are preventing them from resupplying at at a space station, and after a few days the characters are shown gazing longingly at the last of their rations; a glass of water and a single cracker.

Jailbait: Seina isn't exactly the most handsome male in the series, but his harem fell so hard for him, they seemed to forget he was only fifteen. Under any normal circumstances, all of the women that fell for, or at least showed attraction to, Seina would be in jail.

Jumped at the Call: Seina, as soon as he realizes he can accomplish something with his bad luck. However, this was due to goading by Seto and she specifically catered to this idea so she would have a new toy to wreck havoc with. One of her attendants (the guy that's usually seen with her along with Minaho) lampshades how she did the same thing with him.

Maneki Neko: This is one of the many types of good luck charms present on the Da Ruma pirate ships.

Marry Them All: Seina winds up marrying all eight members of his harem. Nine, if you include the questionable case of Fuku. This makes it symbolic as nine is an unlucky number in Japanese (similar to four)

No Kill Like Overkill: Seto commented with the combination of the Jurai Tree Misuki and the Kamidaki the power might be that of a 1st Class Jurai Battleship. One of the underlings comment on the power might being excessive.

Oblivious to Love: Seina; not once until the last episode is he aware that any of the girls are in love with him despite how many times they have openly thrown themselves at him. Even during the wedding he seemed to fully believe that the only reason they were marrying him was because it was a political marriage and they were under orders rather than they genuinely loved him.

Every Juraian character shown. Neige trumps everyone else by being somewhere over two thousand years old.

Seto is over 4,600 years old. Then there are certain members of the Tenchi household who absolutely dwarf Neige in terms of age.

Rebellious Princess: Amane ran away and joined the Galaxy Police to get away from the shadow of her overbearing father. He's still trying to get her to come home until the second half of the series.

Required Spinoff Crossover: Ryoko shows up in silhouette in the first episode. Two later episodes feature Washu and Ryo-Oh-Ki, and then along comes episode 15, in which Seina hangs out with the entirety of Muyo's cast.

Unexpected Successor: By gaining control of the Zinv-look-alike which has a First Generation Juraian tree seed in it, Seina becomes third in line for the Juraian throne. However, because Tenchi and his grandfather do not really want to succeed the throne, this effectively puts him first.

Unfortunate Names: Due to the fact that every other "lucky" name was taken at the time, Seiryo is forced to christen his ship the Unko, which is supposed to mean "bringer of fortune", unfortunately for Seiryo, "Unko" also means, and is more commonly used to refer to, poop. Hilarity Ensues.

Unknown Rival: Seina never really perceives Seiryo as an enemy; despite this, he's one of the few people on the show who takes Seiryo seriously.

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